I have a point shape file that has many event occurances stored for ever point. I am trying to select the most recent event for every point. Is there a way to do this through the "Select by Attributes" in Arc?

I don't supposed you are lucky enough to have a datetime stamp field that gets the datetime added when the feature was added, do you? Any sort of date field that can help?
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Chad CooperFeb 28 '12 at 21:11

there is a date time field for whe the event occured
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Finalfire0Feb 28 '12 at 21:23

How are you storing multiple events for each point? In a separate table or by duplicating points?
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blah238Feb 28 '12 at 21:35

1 Answer
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If you have a identifier that the duplicate points share, you've got it made with a simple SQL query. Just write a sql statement that groups by duplicate point identifier. You could pull your shapefile into a personal geodatabase (*.mdb) with ArcCatalog, then open it with MS Access. Or pull it into PostgreSQL.

If you don't have an identifier that indicates duplicates, you're screwed.. Actually you'll just need to do some intersection work with the data first.

"Generate Near Table - Determines the distances from each feature in the input features to one or more nearby features in the near features, within the search radius. The results are recorded in the output table."

"Both the Input Features and Near Features can be the same dataset. In that case when the input and near features are the same record, that result will be skipped so as not to report that each feature is 0 units from itself."

I have tried this SQL query with my 'roosts' table and I get the following error: "There was an error with the expression. General function failure [roosts]. Too few parameters. Expected 2." I'm using the select by Attributes function in ArcGIS. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong here please?
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ffinnmMar 26 '14 at 20:30